Chapter Text
In the Sea withouten lees
standeth the birde of Hermes
eatinge his winges variable
and maketh himselfe full stable
when all his feathers be from him gone
he standeth still here as a bone
When he came to her, she was sitting up in bed and reading. The shadows behind her bed loomed over her, and she spoke without lifting her eye from the page.
“I ordered you to rest below.”
He laughed, exultant. She hadn’t changed. Not at all.
“But I am, Master,” he crooned. The shadows slid back down the wall, crawled over the floor, and sprung into the air where they took the shape of a man. A wide, toothy smile spread over the blackness of his face. “I’m down there right now. Resting.”
“You are ‘everywhere and nowhere.’ Right. I see that you plan to milk that excuse for all it’s worth.” Still she did not lift her eye to look at him. Oh she was still the same, his dear Master. Seeing her like that calmed a hunger within him which blood could never satisfy.
He waited, a man-shaped void, until she relented and looked over her book at him.
“What do you want, Alucard? I know you’ve been fed.”
At the sound of that name, red eyes blinked into view over the smile; then the whole avatar stood beside her bed, all black and red, all hair and eyes and mouth.
“To see you. I want to see you,” Alucard said, and he had the privilege of witnessing a flicker of surprise cross her face before she could repress it. Ancient, she’d called herself. Ancient! Barely past fifty and still beautiful. Despite what she believed, she remained the woman he’d known. A few wrinkles, lighter hair, a missing eye. . . how could she have thought those things would repulse him? Him!
You have some vanity in you after all, my Countess. You wished to remain young for me. You flatter me, in wanting me to find you beautiful.
“Well. You have seen me, so you can go now,” she announced, and she looked back down to her book. With her head bent, her hair and the shadows obscured much of her face from him.
“Are you ordering me to go, Master?” Alucard purred. “Or are you merely pretending that you want me to do so. . . Integra?” When she did not answer him, his smile widened, and he sat down on the edge of the bed, beside and facing her. Her jaw clenched.
“You have some nerve,” Integra growled, yet she still refused to look at him again. Only last night, he had allayed all her doubts and made all his intentions clear. . . and then the dawn had come, and for that whole day he had been in her presence only long enough to receive her orders:
Rest. Drink what they bring you. Strengthen yourself.
Stay below.
His Master had banished him to his old domain, which had survived the mansion’s near destruction and which, apparently, she had maintained and kept ready for his return. After sending Alucard below, Integra had hidden herself from him above, in the light and in her work. Well, she hadn’t changed in that way either—she’d always done that when she wanted him out of her way.
Alucard tried another tactic: “There is no reason to send me away, my Master. I need no more rest, for I am ready to serve at your command once more.” Receiving no response, he added, “Although. . . it seems you have carried on quite well without me.”
“You gave me little choice in the matter,” muttered Integra. “But I did not carry on alone. I have Seras.”
“Yes, our little police girl. How she’s grown up—you must have such pride in her, as I do. But do you mean to say that she is a fitting replacement for me? Are human hearts so fickle that you really did forget me?” Alucard had meant only to tease her, yet Integra’s slender hands clenched her book hard enough to wrinkle the pages.
She hissed, “Monster. I’m fickle, am I, because I continued to perform my duties, because I did not wait for you?” Finally, finally she lifted that lovely blue eye back up to him, and he reveled in the disdain it held for him. Every time he roused passion in her, even if it came in the form of anger, he counted it a victory.
“I suppose three decades are but a moment for you, but for humans, for me—ages!” Integra snarled. “I had you by my side so briefly—thrice that long, I spent without you. And you expected me to wait.”
But you did wait, Integra, you waited in the way that mattered. He had known it the very instant her blood fell upon his tongue, and so he smiled brilliantly at her ire.
“I am sorry for taking so long, but you know my reasons,” Alucard reminded her as he placed his hand over hers and pried it off the book. When Integra huffed and tried to pull her hand free, he only closed his fingers tighter and murmured to her, “I felt your faith in me. It was the beacon drawing me onward—leading me back to you. When your faith began to waver, that’s when the way home got slower, and more difficult.”
Integra’s blue glare did not falter, but the fury in it softened as he spoke. When he had done, she told him, “My faith in you never wavered, Alucard—it was my hope that began to fade. I never considered that you would betray me. I knew you could not. Yet I feared that I could not hold out long enough. I feared I would die before you returned.”
Alucard closed his glowing red eyes and sighed out a breath from deep within him. “You trusted in me only because you knew I must obey your last command.”
Don’t leave me! No matter where he had gone, no matter whom he’d become, he’d remembered that desperate cry. The times he came close to forgetting his own self and drowning in another’s life, he’d hear Integra’s voice and claw his way to the surface, back towards her—but not because she was his Master.
And now Integra managed to surprise him, for she gave a harsh laugh and retorted, “Such dramatics! You think your Master trusts only in the leash that binds you to her, hmm? So you believed everyone who called you Hellsing’s dog.” He felt her free hand on his hair, petting him like he was that very thing. He grinned once more, pleased.
“That never bothered me, Integra. For there are two kinds of dogs—the one which cowers and obeys its master from fear, obeys because it must. And the other which strains at the leash and pricks up its ears in eagerness for its master’s next command. There is pride in being that sort of dog, which obeys out of respect and love.”
Integra’s hand froze upon his hair, and Alucard opened his eyes to see that her cheeks had flushed, as they had done so rarely even when she was a child.
“Alucard. . . .”
“My Master.” He leaned his head into her touch and turned it so that her hand touched his cheek. “My Integra. Forgive me, will you?”
“All right, all right, I forgive you!” she grumbled. “Insufferable nuisance.”
Alucard captured the hand upon his cheek; then he brought both hands to his mouth and kissed them. He’d fully intended the gesture to be flamboyant and, yes, dramatic, but once he tasted her skin, the kisses became real. He covered the backs of her hands and her fingers with them, then spread her hands and caressed her palms open-mouthed.
“Alucard!” she snapped, as if to bring him to heel like the dog he claimed to be, but her hands trembled.
“So I have your forgiveness—now tell me your decision!” he mumbled against her skin.
“My—decision? What do you—ah!” He had sucked her left thumb into his mouth and coiled his tongue around it. He could smell the blood pulsing just below her skin, in the blue vein which ran down from her thumb to her wrist.
So easy to nick that vein with the sharp tooth resting against it.
Alucard flicked his red gaze up to her face as he slowly and deliberately drew his head back and released her hand from his mouth.
“Your decision,” he repeated. “You’ve had enough time—ages, you said. Don’t tell me you never thought about it.”
Integra had regained control of her voice by the time she retorted, “Thought about what?” She glowered at him when he bared his teeth in another smile.
“You know. Which you would choose when I returned. Or ‘if’ I returned, if you like.” Alucard paused, admittedly for effect, though Integra looked annoyed rather than impressed. Finally, he asked, “Will you remain human? Or not?”
Integra gaped at him.
“Well?” he prompted.
Integra’s lower lip quivered the slightest bit, but then she exploded, “Alucard, how—how dare you presume to ask me a question like that!” She yanked her hands free and slapped him right across his face, yet went on ranting at the same time: “After you tried your damnedest to take my blood less than a day ago!” Alucard threw back his head and cackled with laughter.
“Like I had the slightest chance of succeeding!” he crowed before calming himself. “But to appease you, I’ll ask your forgiveness for that too. I could not help myself—I was starved, for blood and for you.”
“Hmph,” Integra snorted.
Alucard went on, “Now I have better control of myself, and I also know you have made your choice. When I tasted those precious drops of your blood last night, I knew. But I want to hear you speak it.”
“You want me to speak it. You mean, you want me to say, ‘Yes, drink my blood, turn me into a monster like you!’” she cried. “How can you wish that upon me, when you’ve told others to retain their humanity? When I’ve heard you say so many times that you want to die!”
“Because I am selfish,” replied Alucard. His honesty appeared to surprise her, even though she knew full well how blunt he could be. “I want you with me for more than the rest of your human life. True, that should be at least another thirty years—but as you said, thirty years is but a moment for me.”
“Why? Why should you want more time than that, when my death will bring you freedom?” Integra demanded. “I have no heir—there will be no more Hellsings! You will never have another master.”
Alucard laughed again, this time with the stunning gentleness he showed so rarely. “Integra. I would rather serve you for all eternity than exist a moment without you. You took my heart in your hands the day we met, and you closed your pretty fingers around it the moment I realized you were no longer a child but had become a woman. My poor tired heart that only a human hand may stop. . . . If you truly do wish to live out the rest of your days as a human, I will not begrudge you that. I will serve my Master gladly. I only ask that you promise me one thing: when you feel your death approaching, you will kill me so that I won’t suffer the loss of you.”
Integra almost never wept, yet now Alucard saw tears brimming in her eye. He lifted his gloved hands up toward her face, but she flung her arms around his shoulders before they reached her.
“Alucard!” Integra gasped into his hair. As he folded his own arms around her, Alucard finally experienced the glorious sensation of her body pressed close to him, her hands clinging to him, her lips on his skin. She pressed her mouth to his temple and murmured, “Alucard, my dear Count. My love, my love.”
He laughed and whispered in her ear, “I knew it. You’re still a virgin—you waited for me.”
“Oh, you’re so sure you’re the reason?” she taunted, breathless though she was. “Maybe it’s only that I never wanted to have anyone else.”
“Anyone else—so you admit that you wanted me.”
“So arrogant,” Integra sighed fondly. She attempted to draw back, but Alucard held her to him tightly.
“I know that you love me, and I know that you remained pure so you could take your rightful place as my Countess when I returned to you,” he insisted. “Now, here I am, back for you to take however you’ll have me: as your servant or as your partner. If my tardiness, or some other failing, has changed your mind and convinced you I am not worthy of you, so be it. But tell me now, Integra! Make your choice, and then never look back!”
He framed it like that, like he was too impatient to wait another moment for her decision, though she had waited a third of her lifetime for him. Far better to appear impatient than afraid! She’d feared he wouldn’t return before she died, and he’d chastised her for it. Yet ever since he’d slipped away from her in three million pieces, he had feared the same: that Integra would die and be lost to him forever, or worse, that she would choose another lover so that Alucard’s bite would do nothing but make her a mindless ghoul.
I can make peace with your rejection and serve you gladly until you end my existence—but I cannot continue to exist in limbo, without knowing if I have any hope or not! So choose, Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing!
“Kiss me, Alucard,” demanded Integra. “Kiss me now, like this.”
He loosened his hold on her and took her face in his hands instead. She regarded him as sternly as ever, with her lips pressed tight together so that the new little lines around her mouth creased. Alucard smiled.
“Your first kiss, Sir Integra?”
Her eye flashed, and she snapped, “If you want an answer to your damned question, quit teasing me and—!” He’d leaned forward and kissed her mid-rant, covering her lips with his and pushing his tongue into her open mouth.
How warm and sweet her mouth was—even sweeter because no one else had tasted it! She remained stunned for a few seconds before trying to reciprocate. She was clumsy with inexperience, and Alucard wanted her all the more for it. He drew her back into his arms and kissed her nearly senseless before breaking their lips apart.
“Now,” he breathed, “give me my answer.”
She closed her eye, but only briefly. When it had opened and fixed on his, Integra said, “Take my blood, offered to you of my free will and without duress. Make me your equal, Alucard—Vlad Dracula!”
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To be continued